Going Home

     When the phone rang, I was in my Osaki OS-400 massage recliner watching a Wings marathon and crushing a box of generic frosted flakes (They’rrre...pretty good!!).  My head was returning to orbit after a long night of Skittles Bombs and tasting yet another rainbow in the form of assorted molly tabs.  The night wound down some time after 4AM with an aborted trip to the IHOP with a girl who insists her name is Francine.  I was denied entry because of my steadfast refusal to adhere to the dress code posted on the door.   

    “Are you busy?” asked my mother in a way that it didn’t matter if I’d been in the middle of delivering premature fraternal triplets, she was going to talk to me. 

    “Yes,” I lied. 

    “Your father has wandered off again,” she said.  Her voice remained taut and coarse, due to her long-term relationship with Pall Mall and Hendrick’s.   

    “When?” I asked. 

    “Last night, I believe.” 

    “You sure he didn’t wander over to Hurtzler’s place to watch amateur stag again?  Probably passed out over there.  The den’s pretty cozy.” 

    “I’ve already called over there,” she said.

    “The police?” I suggested.

    “He wasn’t kidnapped.” 

 

    My dad’s been a pain in the ass for a few years now.  Since retiring he’s been a bit aimless, to say the least.  He claims he’s preparing for Alzheimer’s by getting black-out drunk and wandering off without his Tracfone that he can barely operate sober.   

     I agreed to lend assistance, provided I could still make my standing 1pm appointment at Bebe’s for my facial/mani/pedi/waxing. Christ knows after this week, I could use some pampering.  The woman who insists her name is Francine has been a helluva ride.  She’s eerily phlegmatic and awkwardly taciturn.  However, she’s smart as a whip and her tits are so big her nipples reside in a different time zone.  She also claims to have an L level government clearance, which I find irresistible and potentially useful.  We’re seeing each other again tonight. 

    I took a quick shower, with a brief self-romantic interlude where I imagined Francine wearing nothing but black patent leather over-the-knee boots with an unsheathed bayonet strapped to her right thigh–as when we first met.  I put on my cold weather tracker’s garb which includes skinny fit camo pants—commando, naturally—and a black turtleneck, along with my black, 14-eye Dr. Martens. I smear some Axe Texturizing Cream into my hair—for enhanced shape and volume—and leave the house. 

    It was colder than I anticipated and the seat warmer in my Black Audi felt good.  Not sure what to expect, I put on Pieces of a Man by Gil-Scott Heron and ate half a medicated gummy for the half-hour drive out to my folks’ place.

    The clouds began to dissipate once I cleared the city limits and the gummy started to bear tingling fruit during “Lady Day and John Coltrane,” thrusting me into a reflective mood.  

 

 

    My parents bought the place near New Waverly a few years before my father retired from NRG.  They sold the house in Rice Village where I’d grown up at a nice prophet and simplified living by moving north of the city.  They built a smaller home on an acreage that backs up to a forest of narrow pines.  There’s a lake nearby where the old man has spent many of his retirement days fishing.  That’s where he met Roger Hurtzler, a retiree from the erstwhile Continental Airlines, who lives nearby with his wife Irene.  The two families have been inseparable since.  

    I’d been long gone by that time and have never had much use for the new place though I have a standing invitation.  Mom’s neurotic and bitchy and Dad’s in his own world, leaving little appeal.  I’m the lone son, though, and sometimes I’m pressed into obligatory duty.

    When I was young, we used to go to Rockets games all the time–back when they were at the Summit before that squirrely little shit Joel Osteen turned it into a church.  If only he knew the drugs I’d ingested in that building during rock concerts.  The company had season tickets and we would sit courtside during the glory days of Hakeem Olajuwon and the back-to-back titles in the 1990s.  In fact, we were there for both championship clinching games.  My dad earned a lifetime ban from the arena a couple years later for throwing a beer at referee Steve Javie.  Javie called a loose ball foul on Kevin Willis who clearly avoided contact with a flopping Chris Morris. The place went nuts, but my dad wasn’t to be outdone.  He’d already crushed eight beers by halftime and his patience was exhausted.  Besides, he never liked Javie.

    The police came to escort him out of the building and I responded by removing my shirt and tossing it on the court then removing my jeans as the sellout crowd serenaded the officials with a refrain of Bull! Shit! Bull! Shit! Bull! Shit!  It wasn’t the right thing to do, but I was just a kid–twenty-four actually–but really just an adolescent with anger management issues and exhibitionist tendencies. 

 

    When I entered the house, my mother was on the settee eating Whoppers and drinking gin and Tang.  A court show is on the television.  The mitigation involves a set of spinner wheels, the buyer, and the shop that installed them.

    “Took you long enough,” she barked without looking away from the television.

    “I see you started without me,” I responded in our traditional familial passive aggressive style.

    “Jesus, what are you dressed for?  I don’t remember a soldier in the Village People.”

    “You’ve been in the sticks too long.  You’ve forgotten what fashion looks like.”

    “And you’ve forgotten what self-awareness looks like.”

    “So where’s Dad?”

    “He probably went fishing,” Mom said.  

    “Phone with him?”

    “Dead on the end table.  As usual.”

    “How many cocktails since you last saw him?”

    “Fuck you, son.  Can’t you see I’m deeply concerned?  I’m hanging on by an emotional thread here.”

    “I’ll check in the woods between here and the lake.  See what I can find.”

    “Thank you, dear boy.  You know I didn’t mean that, right?”

    “The part about being concerned?”

    “Prick.”

 

    A quick walk through the garage made obvious a number of things.  The old man’s car wasn’t involved.  Neither was his fishing rod.  Either dementia had finally taken hold or he simply wandered off to get away from Mom’s frigid bullshit. Either scenario raised concern.  There’s something about old people that makes it easier for them to die.  Exposure, a fall, attacked by a gaze of aggressive raccoons.  A heart attack at the mere sight of said aggressive raccoons.  

    I hadn’t weaved through the woods long before I saw something on the ground ahead, near a creek.  

    “Dad!  George!”

    There was no answer.  I rushed through the maze of trees toward the water.  Collapsed on the rock was the unmistakable frail body of my father.  Even more unmistakable were those stupid dad jeans he wears and the egg white Stan Smiths.  

    “Damn it, Dad.  What the hell?”

    His shirt was pulled up over his head clearly revealing his SeaBees tattoo that now looks like a medallion that has been buried in an old drill site for fifty years. 

    “Where the fuck am I?”

    “In the woods behind your house.  What are you doing here–wander off drunk again?”

    “You see I stopped by Hurtzler’s place last night.  He’s got this new 16mm about a municipal transportation driver who accepts sexual favors in lieu of bus fare.  It’s called Come Aboard–with that double-jointed girl that has the chili pepper tattooed on her ass.  

    “Christy Wondersnatch,” I pipe in.

    “Yeah, her!” he affirms, enthusiastic in defiance of his physical discomfort. “So after that, I’m obviously a trife randy and didn’t want to go home with my antenna up.  Your mom would get the wrong idea, you know?”

    “Who wouldn’t?”

    “So I went out to walk it off.  I was about to head back when, I’ll be goddamned if I didn’t get attacked by a pack of raccoons.”

    “Gaze.”

    “How the fuck would I know their sexual preference?  They’ll eat anything.”

    “Never mind.”

    “So I’m running away from these little fuckers toward the creek when I step in a hole.  I hear my ankle pop and I start screaming like I’ve been shot.  I go down and bang my head.  The herd of raccoons get spooked and take off, I guess.”

    “Gaze.”

    “You’re obsessed.  Been hanging out in the Montrose again?  What the hell are you wearing?”

    “Sorry.  I’ll remember my bib overalls and velcro sneakers next time, you hick.”

    “Are we gonna flick each other’s balls all day or are you going to get me out of here?”

    “Dad, you’re a hundred yards from home.  You need me to call an Uber?”

    “No wise ass, I think my ankle is broken.”  

    “I think you might be right.”

    “Your mother must be worried sick.”

    “Not sick.  She did notice you were gone, though.”

    “Well give me a hand and help me out of here.”

    “Why didn’t you call for help?” I ask.  

    “It’s kind of hard to be stentorian when you’ve got a fucking broken ankle,” he snapped.

    “What about your TracFone? Isn’t that why you got the stupid thing?”

    “That piece of shit doesn’t work.  Never has.”

    “It was a government freebie.  What did you expect?”

    “I expected it to hold a charge and be able to make a damn call once in a while.”

    I check my silver Tag and notice it’s after 12pm.  Southbound traffic on the North Freeway is going to be a bastard and I don’t want to ruffle Bebe’s feathers–especially when I’m scheduled for a chest waxing.

    “I’ve got to get back to the city, but I’ll tell you what.  I’m gonna call the fire department.  They can get you out on a gurney so I don’t have to drag you back to the house.  They’ll likely send for an ambulance and take you to Conroe Regional where they’ll probably set you up with a nice warm morphine drip.” 

    “Really?”

    I nod, knowing I am winning the negotiation.  

    I call 911 and check my watch again.  There’s no way I have time to stay.

    “Dispatch says 20-25 minutes.  You’ve been here all night and haven’t gone into shock, so you should be okay for another half hour.”

    “Where the hell are you going?”

    “I’ve got an appointment with Bebe.  Keep your TracFone handy and call me if you’re still out here at 2:30.”

    “I told you I don’t have my goddamned TracFone and it wouldn’t work if I did.”

    “I’ll let Mom know where you are,” I offer walking away.

    “Lots of good that’ll do me,” he huffed.  “You can’t leave your injured father out here.”

    “I’m sorry,” I said.  “It’s an emergency…and the fire department is probably already on its way.”

    “Enjoy your anal bleaching, you weirdo prick,” he yells as I moved toward the car.

 

    And they wonder why I come home so infrequently.